Download MHC Recognition MHC Recognition DuPont Essay Rough Draft

MHC Recognition 1
MHC Recognition
DuPont Essay Rough Draft
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What does MHC do to mice? What is MHC? It controls their lifestyle from birth
to mating and even to raising pups of their own. Communal nesting is observed in mice
as a means of efficiently raising their young. By communally nursing, parents are able to
care for their young with less if not no effort at all. What is communal nesting So how
does MHC play a role? MHC affects kin recognition leading kin to nest together and nonrelatives to mate. The world of mice is more intricate than we think for their daily routine
revolves around the MHC gene and their lives depend on it.
MHC is a gene that helps distinguish kin and thus allows for mice to communally
nest with MHC-similar mice and not to mate with MHC-similar mice. Explain MHC in
intro. Makes intro easier to understand.(Penn & Potts, 1999) Nesting with MHC-similar
mice is a natural instinct of mice because it increases inclusive fitness. What’s inclusive
fitness? MHC-similar mice also choose not to mate together in order to ensure genetic
diversity. (Manning, Potts, & Wakeland, 1991) Major histocompatibility complex (MHC)
is a gene that produces molecules on the surfaces of cells which function during immune
recognition Placing this sentence as the second sentence of the paragraph helps the
paragraph flow better. However they also serve as two major requirements of identifying
genetics based on kin recognition. (Manning, Potts, & Wakeland, 1992) MHC is
identified from mouse to mouse through a form of physical discrimination which creates
unique scents for each gene Fix grammar in sentence. These individual odors are emitted
by genes allowing for these preferences to be made. The MHC gene is also of
unprecedented genetic diversity making it useful in the resolution of genetic
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relationships. The female partners that nest together share the allelic forms of MHC.
Their genotypes, the genes, and haplotypes, a group of alleles of different genes that are
closely placed together and therefore tend to be inherited together, affect the process
What are alleles?. They play roles in determining a dam’s best choice of communal
nesting partners.
Nesting patterns are of crucial importance to the raising and caring of young pups
I thought this was about mice. Please explain what a pup is. Some pups are prone to
infanticide at birth due to the tendency of some territorial males to kill those pups that are
not from his territory. (Dewsbury, Manning, Potts, & Wakeland, 1995) This already
reduces the number of pups in a nest and in order to benefit the survival of the remaining
pups, it is in the interest of the dams to communally nest What are dams?. Communal
nesting diminishes the necessity of wasting time and energy on the parents’ side.
However communal nursing is a responsibility shared amongst the females that involve
the care of each individual pup You explain the effects of communal nesting but not what
communal nesting really is. (Saylor & Salmon, 1971) The pups must be indiscriminately
provided for and nurtured equally and not based upon physical or genotypic
characteristics. These offspring have a higher chance of survival by being the products of
communal nesting. Their exposure to many dams creates many forms of immunity from
the milk of the female mice as well as the mass of many different mice in a single area.
However it has been shown that mothers that communally nurse do discriminate against
pups that are of different age or size than their own offspring. (Potts, Manning, &
Wakeland, 1994) This is detrimental to the main function and purpose of a communal
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nest which can cause some pups to be at a disadvantage instead of the intended
advantages Fix grammar in this sentence.
Communal nesting is truly beneficial to mice and many other rodents as a means
of raising young. The role that the MHC-gene plays is major as it distinguishes between
partners for nesting and living together as well as mates with whom offspring are
produced. Mating is disassortative for the benefit of the offspring just like communal
nesting is carried out to efficiently raise young. As parents, there is a notion to live for the
next generation and it is clearly visible in the lives of house mice. MHC based communal
nesting as well as mating and their effects are in the interest of the new generation.
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BURGERKING2
References:
Dewsbury, D.A., Manning, C.J., Potts, W.K., & Wakeland, E.K. (1995). Communal
nesting and communal nursing in house mice, Mus musculus domesticus.
Animal Behaviour, 50, 741-751.
Ilmonen, P., Penn, D., Damjanovich K., Morrison L., Ghotbi L., & Potts, W.K.
(2007). Major histocompatibility complex heterozygosity reduces fitness in
experimentally infected mice. Genetics 176, 2501-2508  I need this *
Manning, C.J., Potts, W.K., & Wakeland, E.K. (1992). Communal nesting patterns
in mice implicate MHC genes in kin recognition. Nature, 360, 581-583.
Manning, C.J., Potts, W.K., & Wakeland, E.K. (1991).Mating patterns in
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seminatural populations of mice influenced by MHC genotype. Nature, 352,
619- 621
Penn, D. & Potts W.K. (1999) The evolution of MHC-disassortative mating
preferences. American Naturalist, 153, 145-164.
Potts, W.K., Manning C.J., & Wakeland, E.K. (1994). The role of infectious
disease, inbreeding and mating preferences in maintaining MHC genetic
diversity: an experimental test. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 346, 369-378
Sayler, A., & Salmon, M. (1971) An Ethological analysis of communal nursing by
the house mouse (Mus musculus). Behaviour, 40, 62-85.